I would guess it was a geographic choice since they have so many automatic qualifiers in that area, but all the seeds are on the west coast. There may have been better choices in the area than Kentucky but there are reasons why they might’ve chosen Kentucky over Tennessee or North Carolina.

Totally agree! We’ve had this conversation about Kentucky again and again and again. Yet we keep forgetting about Kentucky being home to the NCAA until it’s tournament selection time — and then WHAT?!

And don’t agree with “Easy Kentucy is SEC.”

Florida had the SEC’s automatic and an easy call to be 1 of the 16 subregionals. I called Tennessee (22-7), which came in 2nd after Florida in the SEC conference, to be 1 of the 16 — though to be on the ‘bubble’ of these 16.

According to the last RPI, which was released to the public after the NCAA tournament selections were announced, Kentucky mysteriously jumped to #19 RPI (from #24 a week before) while Tennessee fell to #21 (from #15 just 7 days earlier). Those would not be unusual moves at the beginning of the RPI tracking system, but for the last RPI those are HUGE movements.

As I have said before, the NCAA committee for women’s basketball has publicly stated it has ended its practice of “tweaking” the final RPI to take into account variables (whatever these may be). What you see is what you get in the NCAA RPI for women’s basketball — and any puter can duplicate it (as long as you do not call a home or away or neutral court wrongly).

The NCAA committee for women’s volleyball has never announced whether it does or does not “tweak” the final RPI.

Win over Lipscomb (yup, the A-Sun conference)
Win over Long Beach State
Lost to Louisville
Win over Ohio (that’s Ohio, not Ohio State)
Lost to Oregon
Win over Western Carolina (quick, name that conference)
Lost to Oklahoma
Lost to Nebraska

Kentucky is a — eyebrows raised — 20-10 team! Third in the SEC conference, but it did beat SEC runner-up Tennessee twice.The NCAA committee members can pat each other on the back. Seeded Kentucky. And no one will remember this travesty next year.

Minor errors from typing too fast. “Totally agree” should be “Totally agree with Cindy.” “Kentucky being home to the NCAA” hq should be “Kentucky being home to the AVCA” hq. The “final RPI” should be “final RPI before the start of the NCAA (Volleyball) Championship. Lol.

The only way Hawaii will be able to host a 1st and 2nd round, is if they also are hosting a Regional, or the site of the Final Four. Otherwise, the committee will find an excuse for Hawaii not to host a 1st and 2nd round. I do not care if they must give a the top 16 seeds a host position. The committee will find a way around that. Inotherwards, screw Hawaii.

We’ve been saying all season that they weren’t going strictly by RPI. that they were supposed to be using Pablo and AVCA poll. They are allowed leeway to place teams regionally. They just seemed to use one standard, then another to justify where they put teams.
Hard to believe Karch went along with the committee when he commented that Hawaii thought it should be seeded, etc, etc.
Notice we didn’t see Mick Haley interviewed this time.

“Hawaii came into the week ranked No. 8 in the coaches poll and 16 in the RPI. In Sunday’s RPI, the Wahine were No. 17.

The top 16 teams in the RPI were supposed to host subregionls. However the selection committee gave Iowa State, ranked 18th in the RPI, the No. 15 seed and Kentucky, ranked 19th in the RPI, the No. 16 seed.”

From your article, you say the top 16 teams in RPI were supposed to host. This is not correct. The Top 16 seeded teams are guaranteed hosting, nothing in the committee’s guidelines states the seeded 16 teams must come from the Top 16 teams in RPI.

Also, you say they were supposed to use Pablo and the AVCA poll. This is also inaccurate. If you read the Championships manual, they simply removed the prohibition of using other rating systems besides RPI. It did not require the committee to use any other rating system much less require the use of the AVCA poll or Pablo in its selections or seeds. It left the door open for them too, but certainly did not require them too.

Cindy – I would disagree, or at least clarify somewhat, your comment that the selection committee was “supposed to be using Pablo and AVCA poll.”

From what I understood, the NCAA merely removed the restriction on using only RPI as a base. This did not necessarily “require” the committee members to use AVCA or Pablo. They were now free to use those polls/ratings, but were not mandated to use them.

There’s a slight distinction there. And so we may never know if the committee did look at AVCA or Pablo, and/or to what extent they relied on those tools.

(Of course, we have yet to see a publicly available version of the current NCAA Championships Manual … to see what the language/rule change actually was in that regard.)

I don’t know of anyone who posts here regularly who said that the top 16 RPI teams will be the top 16 seeds.

I’ve been saying all along that it would help if a team is in the RPI top 16, but as long as you’re in the top 24 in the week the NCAA annouces its seeds/selections, you’re in the ballpark. And this was true, for Iowa State was #23 and Kentucky was #24.

But for the last RPI which was released on the day of the NCAA seeds/selections, the cutoff point was a rpi of at least 19: Iowas State was #18 and Kentucky was #19.

(As you know, the Nov. 25 NCAA RPI was not released to the public until after the NCAA tournament seeds/selections were annouced. This Nov. 25 RPI had some strange movements, which you don’t expect as the rankings pretty much becomes stable this deep into the season — unlike earlier in the season, when you have much less data to work with. Thus we see a #24 Kentucky play middle-of-the-conference Missouri and Auburn, wins both as expected, and suddenly finds its RPI leaping to #19.

“Curiouser and curiouser!” Cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).

Cindy said it in her article quoted above but I’ll do it again for you,

“Hawaii came into the week ranked No. 8 in the coaches poll and 16 in the RPI. In Sunday’s RPI, the Wahine were No. 17.

The top 16 teams in the RPI were supposed to host subregionls. However the selection committee gave Iowa State, ranked 18th in the RPI, the No. 15 seed and Kentucky, ranked 19th in the RPI, the No. 16 seed. “

Yes, posted that several weeks ago.
they are awarded through 2014
that was done in 2010
The NCAA announced the host sites for the 2013 and 2014 Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship. In addition, regional sites for the years 2012-2014 were also revealed.

Seattle, Wash. will play host to the 2013 championship, while Oklahoma City is the designated location for the 2014 championship. As previously announced, the 2010 NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Championship will be held in Kansas City, Mo., with San Antonio, Texas and Louisville, Ky. serving as hosts in 2011 and 2012, respectively.

Regional sites for the year 2012 will be: the University of California, the University of Nebraska, The University of Texas and Purdue University. Regional action in 2013 will take place at the University of Southern California, the University of Kentucky, the University of Florida and the University of Illinois, while the 2014 regionals will be hosted by the University of Washington, Iowa State University, the University of Louisville and the University of Minnesota.

Shoji hasn’t said when he’ll retire so don’t know where you’re getting 2014.
Who needs to do something is the SWA, Marilyn Moniz-Kaho’ohanohan. She’s the one who should be spearheading the bids. iBut she didn’t even show up for the selection show. she should have been there, especially to help with travel arrangements.

Again, Cindy, have you already forgotten about the Stevie Wonder fiasco. The Wahine will be lucky to get a redeye out of Hawaii to Seattle. Hawaiian Air has direct flights to Seattle, but knowing the UHAD, they will have the Wahines flying to LA, then to Salt Lake, to Portland, then to Seattle. Quite possibly taking 2 days to get there.

Not sure why Stevie Wonder has anything to do with this. That was under Donovan’s watch, not Freitas’. but Shoji and staff handling the arrangements. Dave said he wanted to get out there Tuesday night. so that may mean HAL direct flight to Seattle Makes the most sense.

Yes, Washington has one Regional site, I do not know where the other are. In 2015, Final Four will be in Washington. Not only is the Selection Committee screwing with the Wahine Volleyball program, but I truly believe the UHAD is also doing so. Everyone knows Dave Shoji’s last year of coaching the Wahine, will be 2015, at latest 2016. The UHAD should do their very best to put in a Bid, the NCAA cannot turn down, for a Regional in 2015, or a Final Four in 2016. Nice way to send Dave Shoji out.

Cause Dave Shoji, and Cindy, has reiterated, he will not be the all time winningest coach in volleyball. That would include Men’s Volleyball, also. Dave Shoji is like 100 or so, wins from being the all time winningest coach. So that would take him thru the 2014, maybe 2015 season, then that will be it.

Last year we got lucky, being able to host the subregional. I think they gave us that one for all the times they jipped us in the past and so they can continue to going back to jipping us in the future (hence this year’s placement). They might have just done that because we had a better shot at advancing, but they still packed our regional of death with CSU, Oregon, USC, & Nebraska.

Hawaii has to make hosting the subregional more attractive, its tough to do that with the FB game forcing a Thursday/Friday pairing. Travel arrangements for three teams to get out here with that short of notice is tough. Yes, they did that for us last year, but in order for us to host the sub-regional we have make hosting as attractive as possible.

I felt we had enough to get at least a seed, once again, we were royally screwed. A possible 2nd round match up with UW? Totally unnecessary…however, I like our chances at beating this UW team versus the last one we faced a couple years ago. But first things first, Santa Clara.

Cindy, will we always be in that predicament because of football? Is FB ever on the road this time of year?

WaWa — Hawaii did not get “lucky” last year being seeded and being allowed to host a subregional. Their RPI was really high last year (#7 going into the tournament). There was no way the committee could have fudged the seedings that much to leave out Hawaii as a seeded team.

This year, Hawaii’s RPI was squarely on the bubble for a seed, and so, there was certainly the possibility that Hawaii would not be seeded.

The one good thing going for the Wahine, Hartong, Goodman, Uiato, and Maeda, where there the last time they played a 1st and 2nd round Tournament match in Washington. They remember what happened, and I am quite sure, they will not let that happen again.

Okay, now that everyone’s got their blood pressure up, let’s do something positive and everybody show up at the airport to show our support for our Wahine on their departure for Washington. Join me, I’ll be there…and wear your green. LET’S GO BOWS.

It would have to be a site west of the Mississippi River, since 2 sites are already east of it. UH should put in a bid that the NCAA cannot turn down. Hawaii will have a Final Four type team next year. Come on UH anty up.

You’re right…..so let’s have a pep rally at the campus and give the Wahine a proper send off. Maybe the pep band can be there too. Our ladies are battle tested and have the tools to advance. Can you find out the time and area where the bus is leaving?

Very disgusted and disappointed and it will be hard for me to get over this. Instead of showing at the airport to see our Wahine off to Washington, my friend and I plan to go see them win over Santa Clara and Washington. GO WAHINE!! See you there!!

Please stop saying Dave needs to do something different to get the women to be able to host 1st and 2nd round. He is doing all he can. He hurts for the team when they don’t get to host. The committee not only disrespects Hawaii as a whole but they disrespect Dave as the all time active winning coach and Emily Hartong as the national POW. This is all the fault of the bias of the NCAA.

I agree, it will be up to the girls, next year. They cannot take a play, set, or match off. The girls will have to do their utmost to go undefeated next year. Not giving the Selection Committee any reason not to give them a host site.

Not sure if the wahine go undefeated will it allow them to host. Wasn’t there a year when Victoria Prince was here when they went undefeated and ranked no. 1 and they still were sent on the road for the 1st round? Frankly I equate the NCAA committee like the UH BOR. They have other more lucrative jobs. This position they have on committees or boards just give them the power to do what they want, when they want and no one can do anything about it. Well, someone can but they usually don’t because of all the “friends” they have in higher positions or political positions.

You are right, but they did not have the rule where, if you are one of the Top 16 seeds you get to host. I believe that rule went into effect either last year or the year before. If that rule was in effect back then, Hawaii would have hosted the 1st and 2nd round. I believe they were also a Top 5 team in the AVCA poll.

Simply put NCAA is corrupt, the RPI is inneffective, the committee is fraud and the people have bias. It is what it is at this point. Shoji can do one of the 2 things:
-Play the RPI game like other schools in the midwest and east coast do
or
Suck up whatever NCAA throw his way coz they will continue to have this bias against UH, but have a team ready to slap NCAA selection committee back with a final four or even a national title appearance.
NCAA is corrupt at best with revenue generators on top of their priorities and not to move the sport forward.

Cindy, hope Ann or you have a chance to interview Ali Longo. Would like to know her take on the seeding, and especially on the West Lafayette Regional, and Omaha Regional, which Hawaii is in. She has been involved in the last 2 cupcake Regionals Penn St. has been involved in. Now she will experience a stacked Regional which Hawaii has to always go thru. It would be interesting to hear what Ali Longo has to say. Curious the hear if she thinks it is fair, or not.

All this speculation on when Coach may decide to retire may begin to affect recruiting – recruits may want to know their coach will be there during their 4 years at UH. He apparently has 2 yrs. left on his current contract. We’ll soon know if it is extended.

A disappointment more so with the handling by the selection committee of the seeding process. The root of this problem of this unsatisfactory selection process are the people on the selection committee. Who in the world are these people who control the seedings. The universities women volleyball department, coaches and other people involved should fix this problem. They are the ones with the teams that play the game, not the selection committee members. Get people on the committee who have an IQ in women volley. This year’s snub is a slap in the face for UH, the AVCA ranking of #8, the Big West Conference and mostly Dave Shoji, the leading winning active coach in the game today.

ganbatte12 — actually, i would say that the bigger issue is not the members of the selection committee, but the directives and instructions that are given to them by the NCAA. the committee does not establish the criteria for selection and seeding, they must simply abide by the criteria that they are given.

remember that volleyball is designated as a “non-revenue” sport by the NCAA, and thus, the criteria and restrictions on travel/costs and on not seeding the entire field … that all plays into it. and creates imbalance in the way the brackets are set up.

could the members be more knowledgeable about the sport? sure … but the first area of concern is in getting the NCAA itself to change the criteria for selection and seeding. and that, of course, is the big hurdle.

Agree W15. As a non-revenue sport they can only seed 25 percent of the field with is 16 teams.
What the NCAA needs to do is share its wealth and put a little more effort into financing other sports.
What is the travel costs to the NCAA to send three teams to Hawaii? With such last-minute travel, tickets would be at least $1000 each and each team allowed a party of 22.
that’s around $66,000 for airfare. nothing about hotels and food.
I believe UH guaranteed $100,000 for the regional and more than made that.
UH doesn’t put in a bid for the subregional. All they tell the NCAA is they are available to host and what days. What hurts Hawaii is the only open dates are Thursday-Friday. If they could host Friday-Saturday or even Saturday-Sunday it would help. Sadly the NCAA won’t let the first-second round be split with a day in between because of expenses.

All you said may be true, but I’m sure that there was something extra going on to seed Kentucky and not Hawaii. Out of the top 12 AVCA ranking Hawaii was the only one not seeded. You know very well that in the power position that the committee is in they can bend and manipulate things where they can do favors and favorites, which will always cause rumblings but no one outside doing the rumbling can do anything about it with their hands tied. They could have seeded Hawaii and make arrangement for expenses with UH, but chose to sneak in Kentucky. Such is life in real, and politics.

You do realize that UH has led the country in attendance ever since moving into the arena in 1994.
UH had the best attendance for the 1st-2nd round last year. there was a comment from the NCAA volleyball peeps that attendance was up last year. the bump was due to UH’s numbers in the sub-regional.
Attendance has no bearing on bids. Harvard got a bid a few years ago and averaged less than 300 for the two days.

Cindy, this will be the last year UH will lead the country in attendance. Next year it will go to Nebraska, they are moving into the nearly 11,000 seat arena. The only way Hawaii can lead the country in attendance next year, is if they sell out SCC every single night, That will not happen. But I can gaurantee you, Nebraska will sell out their arena,

Likely true UH will loses its title with Nebraska Moving to the other facility. But we’ll see if they draw there.
may be a tickets issued scenario such as UH uses.
but if you look at how many home matches both teams had this year
Nebraska with 16
UH with 18.
UH could still be overall total. Nebraska may be overall average.

Warrior 15, sorry couldn’t reply directly.
You said it much better than I wrote. ‘supposed to’ was not the correct term. As you said, they were giving the option of using other tools.
I think they used the option when it was convenient, ergo Kentucky seeded over teams with higher RPI.
Think Shoji said it best yesterday. This is no transparency in this process.

i am asuming that uh bid for rounds 1/2 is based on what they think they can make – need to at least break even.

wouldn’t their bid be much higher say, if we had an additional 500-1000 season ticket holders (i am guessing that most will buy the playoff tickets), and we had an extra 500-1000 walk up ticket buyers?

last year, did our attendence for rounds 1/2 go over 8,000 per game? and some of the attendance figures will include passes for team, staff (both uh and visitors)

MITH, you no longer bid to host 1-2 rounds. The subregions are determined by seeding.
All UH does is tell the NCAA they are available to host. and on what days. Thr-Fri, Fri-Sat, Sat-Sun
since they don’t split the days, Hawaii’s only option was to say they could host Thu-Fri. which herts when you realize that teams need a full day to be here and practice.
So any team learning on Sunday they had to go to Hawaii needs to be here by Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.